The Irish could finish ranked 4th. Who would have thought ?
Ohio State beats Indiana
Georgia beats Tennessee
Alabama beats Texas (SEC Championship)
Replies to: The Irish could finish ranked 4th. Who would have thought ?
It remains to be seen how the committee will treat conference championship game losses
The SEC could finish with multiple teams at 10-2 that don't make the conference title game. Seems they could be better off not going to the conference title game.
The self-penalty that savvy Jack negotiated falls apart if teams are not penalized for a conference title game loss.
I saw somewhere the committee will not penalize teams that lose that game
Nor should they. I remember a few years ago when Auburn beat Alabama, was ranked #4 to Bama's #5, lost the SEC title game to Georgia and the committee elevated Bama to the playoff, leaving Auburn out in the cold. Very unfair.
How the winner of the conference games dominate them should mean a lot. I still don't know how
Georgia got left out last year after being the defending national champion with one loss and losing to Alabama in the conference championship by 3. On the other hand if there are blowouts in the conference championship games then teams should be punsihed.
That is going to be difficult to pull off depending on what "not penalize" means
First of all, the champ games will define byes so the loser in the champ games will be "penalized" for losing in that game.
Second, I don't think anyone has said that both teams in the champ games are guaranteed slots. There is a pretty good possibility that there will be at least champ game loser who will not make the playoffs.
I think the challenge will be when two highly rank teams play each other and to not let a loss in the champ game affect the seeding -- which would be pretty tough. For example, how do you handle the seeding of the loser of 12-0 Oregon/ 12-0 Indiana? To not "penalize" the loser, they would have to be guaranteed a higher seed than the 3rd team out of the BIG assuming there is one. And while doing that you will have to compare OSU to 3rd team out of the SEC or perhaps even to the loser of the SEC title game.
Because the committee will be creating the 1st history of this decision, about the only thing we know is SEC/ACC/BIG/Big 12/Group of 5 "winners" are in and 4 of those teams will get byes and the rest will be creating a possible roadmap for the future selections/seeding.
every team should be given credit or criticism for every game....
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Re: every team should be given credit or criticism for every game....
You're absolutely correct! How many times have we heard in recent years that ND should be penalized for not having a 13th data point. Now, they are indicating that the conference championships should not hurt the participants. If not, why have the game?
100%. If an SEC gets blown out in the confence game vs. loses by 1 pt....for example...
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A team should never be better off missing the conf title game
And I don’t think u should be punished for making it. Basically the loser of the conf title game gets in before anyone else in the conference barring some very odd scenarios.
Agree if you are only considering teams from their own conference making it to the playoffs
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But the lose should definitely effect how they are ranked v teams outside their conf
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Agree somewhat, but in what scenario does anyone ever
get to play for a huge reward (first round bye) but suffer zero consequences for losing.
Does the team who loses the NC game always end up ranked #2? Nope!
There are consequences for losing a game..there have to be! Otherwise just say every conference has 2 automatic bids and you can have 10 of 12 playoff spots locked up by the same teams who just played in the Conf Championship games.
They can say its not fair because ND doesn't risk dropping from losing a Conf Championship game...yeah, we also don't have the opportunity to be one of the top 4 seeds no matter how much better we are than the field (imagine a year ND is 12-0, ranked #1 in all polls, has wins over the teams ranked 2, 3, 4, and 5, and next best playoff teams all have 3 or more losses.
ND still couldn't be one of the Top 4 seeds. This is the way its set up and they don't get to have their cake and eat it to.
Playing for the benefit of getting a top 4 seed comes with the risk of dropping a little in the seeding if you lose...it's only fair.
The simple solution is no conf title games but that’s not going to happen
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Agreed, but in essence that is what you're already doing if the ""loss"" doesn't count in CCG
additionally you're having the players play one more game in an already lengthy season and risk injury.
Just skip the CCG and let the conferences pick their Champ by their rules/tie breaks and assign them the bye.
But what about the MONEY!?!?!?!?!
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Life is about decisions...if they care about the money that much, then they gotta accept dropping
some if they lose the game.
Philosophically, I agree, however the super conferences mean a lot of teams don't play each other
Or even have a fair number of common opponents. The super conferences suck, IMO.
Alabama could jump us with 2 top 10 wins and an SEC title.
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If they win the SEC, jumping us in the rankings is irrelevant
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